Ames Iowa Web Design

Designing a Better Internet, One Page at a Time!

Web Design is the art of combining web graphics,
web copy and web programming languages into a
functional presentation for display on the world
wide web. Effective web design requires many
resources and a wide range of knowledge to
accomplish it's soul purpose, which is to deliver
information to web users. Some of these
resources include
graphic design, HTML scripting,
interactive media design, Cascading Style Sheet
definition, Web
Programming, Server Setup, Site Maintenance and
Search Engine optimization. All of these resources
can be combined in various ways to deliver websites
of all sizes, shapes and function. A simple
marketing web site might us a sub set of these web
technologies, where a social networking site could
use an entirely different set to execute it's
primary purpose.

Winning Solutions, Inc. (WSI), with offices in
Ames, Iowa (The Midwest) and Fort Myers, Florida
(The Southeast), employees website designers,
website programmers, server administrators, search
engine analysts and usability specialist to deliver
web sites that not only look good, but are function
driven. If your business is a small local shop, WSI
can create a website design that targets your
specific needs. If your business is a large,
national chain, we can also provide enterprise level
website creation and graphic design that will reach
your market.

It's always been our belief that all website
design services should be scalable so that everyone
from small to large gets access to the same list of
available web design services. Not only does
this allow us to help the smaller business get a
foot in the door on the website, but it also allows
us to keep our skills sharp and precise. If
you are looking for any web design services, WSI can
provide them in part or in full.

Common Website Design Process Questions

I want a website, but I don't know where to
start. What should I do?

Website design can seem like a very daunting
task. The web is full of website design
articles, technologies and "experts". Filtering
through all of the nonsense and finding out what
you specifically need really isn't as
complicated as it may seem.

You can start your web design RIGHT NOW! And
any work that you put into designing your
website should be reflected in lower web
development and design costs. Here are a couple
of steps that can take you a step in the right
direction in your web design process. You can
also contact a WSI
website designer for free to walk you
through these steps.

Decide what your website design budget is
(Cost).

Do you have a hundred dollar or a million to
invest in your website design and development?
Your budget should remain separate from anything
else for the time being. Don't worry about how
much web design costs, think about how much you
can comfortably spend. It is very
important to know how much you have to work
with. You may also want to set a minimum and a
maximum budget. What you can afford is one of
the elements of web design that is fairly fixed
so make note of it. Remember, this is not what
you think it is going to cost, this is what you
have to spend.

Decide when you want your website to be
available to the public (Time).

Knowing when you want your site to "go live"
is very important in the web design process.
This information will allow you to set
milestones for various web design processes.
Right now the important part is to know the very
latest date you would like to be able to welcome
visitors to your site. Also note an ideal
time for the website to be released. This
website design factor can be ambiguous or
loosely defined, a month from now or next year.
Make note of your desired time frame for your
web design.

Define what you want from your web design
(Scope).

Of any of the steps, this one requires the
most work. But even this step can be broken down
bit by bit to make defining the scope of your
web design process easier. For now lets answer a
couple of quick questions that will help you
define what you want from your website. Try to
answer each of these questions with a sentence
or two.

Who is your target market?

What are you selling, providing or
wanting to tell them?

How many web pages do you think you will
need to tell your market what you are
offering?

What is the purpose of each of these
website pages?

Website Design Process Example Summary

Now lets look at an example of a web design
plan based on the completion of these 3 steps.

Web Design budget: $500-5000

Web Design Timeframe: I want
my website available to the public two weeks
from the web design start date.

Web Design Scope: My target
market is fisherman in the local and surrounding
area. I/we provide fishing supplies and
boating supplies. I think we can inform our
target market of our services and products with
5 website pages. The first web page would
display our current specials. Our second web
page would list all of our boating products. The
third website page would list all of our fishing
products. The fourth page would have information
on our company, including locations and driving
directions. The last page would allow website
visitors to contact us.

Why are you giving away information on website
design for free? Where is the catch?

There is no catch! WSI has always held the
idea that information should be free, services
and products should cost money. We strive to
answer all of our clients web design or other
web service questions before starting
development. A little planning goes a long way,
as the saying goes. Not only does providing
information make the web design process easier
on our clients, it makes it easier for our web
designers and web developers as well.

Many website creation companies try to sell
you on a list of their features or expertise
regardless if you need them or not. This type of
sales approach leads to over budget projects,
missed deadlines and worst of all, upset
clients. WSI focuses on long term relationships,
we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we
didn't help our clients get what they want
rather than what we want to give them.

What is the difference between web design and
web development?

Both website design and web development can
mean different things to different people
depending on who you are talking to. The world
wide web is filled with many terms that can be
interchanged and others that can't.

Typically, web design refers to the entire
process of building a website or is a direct
reference to a part of a website creation
process. In the first case, web design includes
graphic design, web design and web development.
In the second case, web design refers
"front-end" elements of a website.

The WSI website creation process includes:

Website planning

Website Design

Website Development

Website Deployment

Website planning is the process of defining
what is to be website is to created. It is
a vital part of the process. This part of the
process can include brainstorming meetings,
market definition, project goals, milestones,
timelines, resource allocation and design or
development strategies. Knowing what you want to
get helps in insuring a web design projects
success.

Okay, this is a lot of information, and I still
have questions. What should I do?

Easy, give us a
call or contact us. We will answer all your
questions even if you decide not to do
development with us. We believe that by
providing you with the answers to your website
design questions you will be better able to
reach your goals.

We like what we see and want to begin a
relationship with you, however, we're located
hundreds of miles away from your office and no where
near Iowa, the Midwest, Florida or the Southeast -
will this work?

We have had, and continue to develop,
numerous relationships with clients that were
not located around either our Ames Iowa, or Ft.
Myers Florida locations. Some of our clients
weren't even in the Midwest or Southeast.

Depending on the scope of the web design
services or website creation services required,
face to face meetings are not necessary to
develop a custom web design solution, web design
process or web design plan. Many of our clients
enjoy sitting in the comfort of their own office
or home and conducting a phone or shared desktop
meeting with one of our trainers, designers or
developers.